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“Oh, can we drop by the store? We need eggs and milk, and a few cleaning supplies.”
“Sure, coming around.” Mav maneuvers the Bronco into a parking space, and the three of them get out. Mav is still on leave, and they’re maximizing what time they have before he ships out again.
Bradley perks up once they’re inside and out of the summer heat. Mav assigns himself on Bradley duty so that Carole can do the shopping in peace, and they wander up and down the aisles as Mav plays the “what’s this?” game with the toddler.
“What’s this, Brad?”
“Juice!”
“Very good,” Mav praises. “And what color is it?”
“Orange!”
“A+, Bradley Bradshaw!”
Bradley giggles as he swings up onto Mav’s shoulders, taking in the store from a slightly higher vantage point. Not as high as Uncle Ice or Uncle Slider’s shoulders, but still fun. Plus, Mav makes the best plane noises.
“Excuse me.”
Mav pauses in their play and turns around, Bradley’s hands tangled in his hair. “Oh, sorry, ma’am. We’ll keep it down.”
”You’re Pete Mitchell, aren’t you?”
Mav nods. “Yes ma’am, that’s me.” He vaguely recognizes her from one of the church lunches they attended once, at the chapel in the middle of Fightertown. Lindy—Lindsey something. Older lady, known for her—salads. Or was it her chicken?
Anyway. She’s currently staring at Mav with a righteous anger in her eyes, and Mav can’t imagine why.
She shakes her head with a huff. “And that must be the Bradshaw boy,” she says, pitifully, looking up at where Bradley has gone quiet on Mav’s shoulders. Mav makes an affirming noise and maneuvers the boy back down into his arms. “Say hi, Bradley,” he says lightly, because Goose raised his boy with manners, damn it, and Mav wasn’t about to slack off.
“Hi,” Bradley says shyly.
“Hi, darling,” Lindsey Anne says, waggling her fingers at Bradley. Bradley shrinks back, hiding his face in Mav’s shirt. “What’s a sweet little boy like you doing with the likes of him?”
Mav snaps his head up from where he’s snuggling Bradley even closer. “Excuse me?”
”You heard me,” Lindsey Anne says, shaking her finger at him, her going-gray strands pulling free from her bun. “You’re the one who killed his father, aren’t you?”
Mav stiffens. Bradley squirms in his arms, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m—ma’am, Goose—Nick Bradshaw was my closest friend.”
”And that just makes it worse, doesn’t it.” Lindsey Anne crosses her arms, shaking her head. “It’s irreverent, is what it is. Downright immoral. Hotshot young man, wouldn’t even leave a grieving widow at peace. What, do you think you could get a whole family ready-made? For shame.”
Mav wants to shrink away from every word—but they hit their mark, and some part of him thinks he deserves this.
“That poor boy’s father is gone because of you, and you act as though you’re his father? Where do you get the nerve?”
Well. Lindsey Anne’s only saying what Mav tells himself in his darkest moments. He closes his eyes and turns around, away from her, Bradley still held close to his chest. “Mav?” the sweet boy asks, one small hand coming up to touch Mav’s cheek. “What’s she saying?”
”Nothing,” Mav chokes out in a low voice, keeping one hand stroking through Bradley’s hair, trying to keep both himself and Bradley calm. “It’s alright, baby goose. Don’t—just don’t listen.”
Bradley keeps quiet obediently, sensing something wrong, keeping his head tucked underneath Mav’s chin.
”Look at me when I’m talking to you, young man!” Lindsey Anne rounds them and she’s back in front of Mav. “Was it Mrs. Bradshaw, hmm? Couldn’t resist? Envy is a mortal sin, you know.”
Mav narrows his eyes. He can take all that they say about him, but he draws the line at Carole and Bradley. “Ma’am, I don’t mind what you say about me but don’t you dare—“
”Aw, Lindsey Anne, I didn’t know you were holding catechism in the middle of grocery stores! We should tell Father Peters to make you a saint.”
Mav turns, and there’s Carole at the other end of the aisle, fires snapping in her normally-kind eyes.
Carole stalks towards them and kisses Bradley on the forehead, murmuring quiet words of comfort. She looks up at Mav. “Cover his ears,” she murmurs, as Mav obediently holds Bradley’s head close to his chest. Carole nods in approval and turns on her heel.
“Now. You shut your mouth, Lindsey Anne! Heaven knows the good Lord didn’t make it just so you could spout shit.”
Mav’s mouth falls open. Lindsey Anne’s does too. “Carole Bradshaw!”
“Yeah, that’s my name.” Carole takes a step up. “And that’s my husband’s best friend you were insulting. Don’t you dare say another word. He’s staying because we’re family, and we don’t need permission from the likes of you.”
Lindsey Anne splutters. “Why, I never! That there is not a good man, Carole. Lord knows why you ever let him in.”
“Ha!” Carole smiles slyly. “I’m not ashamed of having good men in my family. That’s more than I can say for you, isn’t it, Lindsey Anne?”
Mav watches in a scared sort of awe as Lindsey Anne’s face turns several shades of red. “Which one was it now?” Carole taps her finger on her chin, pretending to think. “Is your Martin still with that pretty young lady he met overseas, or the one he met at the Hard Deck last week?”
Oh, Lindsey Anne is positively purple right now. Mav’s impressed–and possibly a little scared.
“Really, someone should set up a scoreboard,” Carole continues, voice airy as if she isn’t committing a bloody murder. “Because if we’re counting good men, well–” she steps even closer, making sure that Lindsey Anne hears. “In my family, I’ve got two and I’m raising number three. I believe you’re still at zero, darling.” She brushes off imaginary lint from Lindsey Anne’s shoulder before leaning in closer and baring her teeth in a wicked grin. “You’d better keep up.”
Later, when they’re at home and Mav puts Bradley to bed, he makes a cup of tea for Carole as a thank-you.
Mav remembers gathering Goose’s things after the terrible news, walking out of the hospital and seeing Carole and Bradley in the waiting room.
He could have kept on walking. He could have left, then and there, and nobody would have stopped him.
But Bradley was there, playing with his toy plane without a care in the world, not knowing that his dad was gone because of Maverick.
And Carole was there, devastated but holding herself together, telling Maverick that Goose loved flying with him, holding Mav while he broke down in her arms, when it was supposed to be the other way around.
He had stayed. There was probably a little penance involved, and a whole lot of guilt–but it was all out of love. And he’d bear anything if it meant Carole and Bradley would have a better life.
“Do you want to move out of here, Carole?” Mav asks sincerely.
“Oh, Mav,” Carole says gently, cupping her hands around the warm cup as she meets his gaze from across the table. “We wouldn’t be able to afford it.”
“I could swing it,” Mav answers confidently. “With your job, and Goose’s pension, and a few odd jobs aside from my salary, we could do it.” He grasps his de facto sister’s wrists. “You don’t have to stay here and listen to that–that–”
“Complete and utter dogshit?” Carole says blandly. Mav barks a laugh. Bradley’s in bed, so Carole’s language filters are totally off. “Yes, that.”
“I can take care of myself, Mav,” Carole asserts fiercely. “And Bradley’s got to learn that he can’t run from words. He’s got to face it head-on.”
Mav just looks at her helplessly. “I just want to protect you,” he admits. “Both of you. If it’s just me, it’s alright, but once they start mentioning you, and Brad, I just–”
Carole gives him a look and takes a sip of her tea. “You just focus on your flying and making sure you come home safe,” she says firmly. “We’re going to be okay as long as you do that. We’re family now, Pete Mitchell. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” Mav blinks tears out of his eyes. “Yeah, I hear ya, sis.”
“Good. And it’s not alright—I don’t want to be seeing you take all of that shit because you think you deserve it.”
Mav smiles faintly. As always, Carole’s perceptiveness sees right through him. “Yes ma’am.”
Carole narrows her eyes at him, well aware that he’s deflecting. “Don’t give me that, Maverick. You don’t deserve that. No one does.”
Carole may cuss out every no-good gossipmonger in Fightertown, Mav reflects, but no one was going to stop him from blaming himself.
Still, he puts on a brave face just for her. “I hear ya, sis. I won’t take it sitting down, I promise. I’ll just send them over to you.”
“You do that,” Carole nods, the fire in her eyes sparking again. “I’ll set them straight.”
No wonder Goose fell for her, Mav thinks.
Thirty years later
The cold air conditioning blasts them in the face as they step in the store.
“Blast from the past, huh Mav?”
Mav chuckles. “Let’s just find the toiletries aisle and be on our way.”
“Ooh, can we get cereal?”
Mav laughs. “Sure, kiddo. Go choose your favorite.”
It’s still Honey Stars. Mav knows it is, because five-year-old Bradley was just as sky-obsessed as thirty-five-year-old Bradley. Cap’n Crunch was a second favorite, especially when Mav made Captain and his teenager cut and pasted his photo on every cereal box they had as a Father’s Day prank.
He wanders the store until he sees the toiletries aisle, wondering if Bradley still uses the same brand of toothpaste and mentally crossing out the brands of body wash that he knows the boy’s somewhat allergic to, when he hears his name.
“Pete Mitchell?”
Mav turns around, and freezes as recognition sparks from somewhere deep in the recesses of his memory. “Ma’am.”
”I don’t suppose you remember me,” the old lady says pompously, crossing her hands on her cane.
“I don’t think I could ever forget you, ma’am,” Mav tells her truthfully, keeping his face carefully blank. Lindsey Anne scoffs.
“Mav? I found the Honey Stars and the Cap’n Crunch. I’m getting both, so maybe get some extra tubes of toothpaste because I know you’re going to be on my ass about brushing all the extra sugar—oh.”
Mav closes his eyes as his thirty-something kid rounds the aisle and stops when he sees the two of them. Deja vu much.
Bradley draws closer, questions in his eyes as he looks at Mav and the old lady and back to Mav again. “This must be…?”
”Lindsey Anne, young man,” she answers. Mav keeps his mouth dutifully shut. “You must be the Bradshaws’ boy. I used to go to chapel with your parents.”
Bradley brightens. “Oh! That’s nice, ma’am. So you must know Captain Maverick here.”
”Yes,” Lindsey Anne says, an undercurrent of disgust still in her tone. Mav doesn’t know how to react. After thirty years—the woman apparently still knew how to hold a grudge.
He should leave. Make an excuse about starting the car. If he knows Lindsey Anne, she’s going to start laying into him any second now. He should leave—but he can’t leave Bradley alone with her. Mav steels himself instead.
“You’re still with him, I see.” Bradley hears the disdain in her voice, and his smile fades. “Poor boy. You really could have done better, you know. But your poor mother,” she clicks her tongue and shakes her head, “stayed with that man. Tragic.”
Bradley looks to his side, and feels his heart clench when he sees Mav, head just hanging low and eyes downcast as he takes the poison spilling from this woman’s mouth.
“Excuse me?”
”Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know,” Lindsey Anne shakes her head. “Surely you know this man here is the reason you lost your father, and he probably bewitched your poor mother too. You’re all grown now, little Bradshaw. You don’t have to stick around with this man. He’s not good for you.”
Bradley can’t believe his ears, moving forward. “Ma’am—“
”Bradley,” Mav catches his wrists and shakes his head when his kid looks at him. “Never mind. Let’s just go.”
”There you go, see? Leaving the old lady telling the truth. The good book was right about hardened hearts. He’s a bad influence, I’m telling you.”
”Okay, that’s enough,” Bradley says firmly, shaking his wrist free of Mav’s hold.
“Bradley—“
Bradley turns to him for a second. “I’ve got this, Mav. Let me do this,” he tells him gently, moving forward to face Lindsey Anne and effectively shielding Mav with his six-foot-two frame. Mav sighs internally, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“You’re right on one thing, ma’am, and one thing only.”
Mav looks up, but he can only see the shoulders of his kid, broad and heaving with barely-contained rage. He lays a calming hand on him. “Bradley…”
”Mav wasn’t just a good man.” Bradley takes a deep breath. “He’s the best man I know, and he raised me with all the love he had and more. He loved my parents, and they loved him. We’re family, and I don’t take kindly to strangers insulting my family.”
Lindsey Anne shakes her head even more, and Mav idly wonders if it’ll detach and fly off her shoulders at the rate she’s going. His kid’s words spark something warm within him, though—an echo of Carole’s words, many years ago.
“You Bradshaws,” she says with a scowl. “Well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Lord knows I tried.”
”Respectfully, ma’am? If the Lord knew what you were saying today, He’d turn around and let you out of heaven.” Bradley steps forward, a smirk on his face. “That is, if you’d even get that far.”
So, the Bradshaw sass is genetic. Carole’s laughing face dances through his memory. Mav doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“You didn’t deserve that,” Bradley says quietly, clenching his jaw as he thinks of what else his dad has had to hear over the years. “You didn’t. Fuck what Lindsey Anne thinks.”
Mav blows out a breath. “Language,” he says halfheartedly, and chuckles a bit when he looks to the side and Bradley’s rolling his eyes. As Mav drives, Bradley can’t help but look at his dad and wonder—here is the Navy’s most-decorated aviator, and they make him the designated go-to guy for the missions no one else wants to fly. He gets a thank-you at the end of it, and gets posted to god-knows-where the following day. Here is the man who kept a family together even if it wasn’t his own, and who’s still stepping up to fill the role even if it almost kills him.
And still—people who didn’t know better thought that they had a free pass to ridicule him, mock him, chalk everything up to a death wish and leave him tied to a made-up caricature of daring upstart recklessness, someone that left people behind in the whirlwind of his reputation.
The Navy acclaimed Captain Maverick and the world despised Pete Mitchell—but they never knew him. They never knew Bradley’s dad, the one who stayed up with him during feverish nights, who taught him who to ride a bike and fly a plane, the one who took a goddamn missile for him.
“I can hear you thinking from here, kiddo.” Mav says.
“Just thinking how proud I am of you, Dad,” Bradley replies, and the car hitches a little as Mav jerks in the driver’s seat. “You–you deserve so much better.” From the Navy. From life. From…me.
Suddenly Bradley wonders just how much Mav had to give up to stay with him and Carole after what happened with Goose. Maybe he could have climbed higher in his career if he hadn’t worried so much about being stateside. Maybe he could have had a family of his own. He knows there were women that Mav loved and that loved him back. Bradley’s heart aches in an entirely new way to think of his father figure having children of his own–if only he hadn’t been saddled with Bradley.
“Brad? Hey, hey.”
Bradley blinks, and the car’s stopped. Before them, the North Island beach glows golden in the afternoon sun.
“Why’re we here?”
Mav smiles, but there’s a bit of worry in his eyes. “You looked out of it. I thought we could relax for a bit before making the drive to the hangar.”
“I’ll drive, if you’re tired.”
Mav hums non-committedly as he reaches into the back for their groceries and pulls out a bag of chips. He opens it and reclines the seat of the Bronco a little, offering the bag to Bradley. “Let’s just take a breather.”
They sit a while, munching their chips and looking at the waves crash against the shore.
“I got the best I could have had.”
Bradley turns his head. “Huh?”
There’s a pensive look on his dad’s face as he holds the chip bag. “Earlier. You said I deserve much better. I’m telling you I got the best I could have ever had.”
Bradley bites his lip, unsure how to proceed, or if he even has the words to describe how wrong his dad was.
“I just–” Bradley sighs. “Take the goddamn Navy, Mav. I know you should’ve made Admiral by now. I know they give you the honest-to-god impossible missions and then they treat you like shit afterwards.” He had heard later that a certain Admiral Cain hadn’t even gotten his dad a full medical after ejecting from the Darkstar, kicking him out from base and sending him up to North Island immediately. That meant his dad had had to suffer through hops and training twelve cocky kids after having just ejected at above Mach 10. Bradley scowls. “I don’t know how you can stand it.”
Mav smiles ruefully. “Wasn’t in it for the stars, kid. You know I can’t do the paperwork life.”
Well, Bradley knows that. Knows his dad comes to life in the cockpit, melding with the machine until he becomes a completely different creature up in the clouds. Flying like a demon and an avenging angel all in one. He’d wither away behind a desk.
“What about–” Bradley bites the inside of his cheek, and then sighs. “What about having a family?”
Mav looks at him with an unreadable expression. “I have a family.”
“I mean–” Bradley clenches his fist in his jeans, frustrated. “I mean one of your own. Didn’t—you could’ve had one, if you weren’t burdened with mom and me. You could’ve…you could’ve had kids of your own.”
Maybe a kid that didn’t leave you alone for fifteen years. Maybe a kid better than me.
“Brad…”
Bradley reddens, looking out the window. “Sorry. It was stupid.”
“It’s not,” Mav says, and he looks deep in thought when Bradley looks at him again, gaze cast out over the waves.
“I wasn’t ‘burdened’ with you, or Carole.” Bradley can practically see the air quotes around his choice of words.
“I’ll admit it wasn’t easy, in the beginning. People talk.”
“People like Lindsey Anne?”
Mav huffs out a wry laugh. “Yeah. I didn’t care if they just talked about me, I’ve been dealing with shit like that ever since the rumors about my dad started going around. I’d fly just to shut them up. But when they talked about you and your mom–” he shakes his head. “Carole was amazing, standing up to them. You’re a lot like her.”
Bradley feels a warmth in his chest, thinking of his mom defending his godfather. Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll take care of him too.
“But I never regretted my choice,” Mav says, and now there’s some steel in his words. He turns to look at Bradley intently. “You are my family. You, your parents–the only real family I’ve ever had. I couldn’t have left you behind. It would have been like cutting off my limbs.”
Bradley swallows. “What about–you can’t tell me you seriously didn’t think about having kids of your own.”
Mav looks at him curiously. “You’re like a dog with a bone, kiddo.”
Bradley shifts in his seat uncomfortably and looks away, ears reddening a bit. “I told you it was stupid.”
A hand comes on his nape, and Bradley unconsciously relaxes as it strokes his hair. “You’re my kid,” Mav says gently. “I’ve never wanted another.”
Bradley leans over the console to lean his head on his dad’s shoulder. Mav chuckles softly as he takes his weight, one arm snaking around Bradley’s shoulders, pressing a kiss into Bradley’s hair.
“But I was so terrified of messing it up,” Mav says after a while. “Of messing you up. I’ll–I’ll always wish I could have done it better.”
Bradley pulls back. “You were the best, Mav,” he says seriously. “You still are.”
“Thanks, kid,” Mav says lightly, but Bradley knows he isn’t convinced.
“I’m serious,” he insists. “No other kid had the childhood I had. Everyone on the block was jealous.”
Mav smiles, memories of balmy summers coming back to him—just him and Bradley and a bike, a car ride, or a plane. The happiest days of his life.
“It wasn’t just the cool stuff,” Bradley continues. “You–you always made an effort to be there. Even when it was hard. I know kids who wouldn’t be able to say the same.”
There were kids on his block who lost their parents too, and didn’t have an Uncle Mav to fall back on. There were kids on his block who had their parents, but might as well not have had them at all—they lost them to a bottle, or to other vices. Bradley had been (and was) deeply loved, by all his parental figures, and had a whole host of other uncles to boot.
“I wouldn’t have changed it for the world,” he finally says contentedly, leaning back in his seat and looking out over the waves.
“I would have,” Mav says quietly, and Bradley turns to stare at him. “What?” His throat suddenly feels dry.
“I would have changed it…if it meant you would’ve had Goose instead of me.”
Bradley closes his eyes at that and leans his head against the window, the distance between them suddenly a yawning chasm all over again. Here they are, each with the cards life dealt them, both of them wishing that each other had a better hand.
They don’t talk further. There’s nothing more to be said. Mav folds the chip bag back up quietly and puts it back with the rest of their groceries, starting the car back up.
“Can I drive?” Bradley asks. “I need to think.”
Mav smiles slightly at how his kid became so like him, even if they don’t share a drop of blood. They switch seats and Bradley takes off on their route toward the hangar, the silence stretching between them.
“I never wished it was you instead, you know,” Bradley says quietly an hour later, as they cruise down the highway. “Of course I’ll always wish I had Goose–but I never wished it was you instead.”
Mav closes his eyes and leans his head back against the headrest. “Brad…”
“You’ve got to know that,” Bradley insists, sneaking glances at his dad as he keeps his eyes on the road. “Please tell me you know that.”
Mav swallows. “Yeah–yeah, I do.”
Bradley nods and clears his throat, making sure they don’t miss their exit.
“I meant it, you know.”
“Meant what?”
“What I said. When I said I got the best I could’ve had. I meant you.”
“Don’t make me cry while I’m driving,” Bradley warns, and that startles a laugh out of Mav. “I’m serious, Mav. It’s dark out and the tears could blur my vision. Keep the tear-jerking stuff for when we reach the hangar.”
Mav just shakes his head, still chuckling. “I love you so much, kid.”
Bradley just grins, taking one hand off the wheel to reach out over the console, grinning wider as his dad takes it. He feels the callouses on those fingers, one hand capable of flying circles around the best of the navy and building a home for a little boy.
“Get some rest, Dad,” he says softly. “I love you too. We’ll be there soon.”